Stock Portfolios and Plasma Monitors, IDF Commanders Failed to Join Their Troops on Field of Battle…

Outside Panel: Israel Military Refused to Fight War (Middle East Newsline)

NOTE: The above is not the full item;

Israel’s military, refusing to treat the 34-day battle with Hizbullah as a war, kept its commanders away from the front and sent soldiers on poorly-planned missions in Lebanon.

An investigation by an outside panel concluded that the General Staff did not treat the Hizbullah rocket strikes against Israel as a war, rather a security exercise. The report by a team led by [Res.] Maj. Gen. Yoram Yair said commanders relayed unclear orders and failed to fulfill even tactical missions.

Yair focused on the army’s Division 91, commanded by Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch, but examined system-wide failures during the war. He said the Israel Army was hampered by inadequate training, preparations and logistics.

The report said Division 91 failed to define missions and sometimes changed orders on an hourly basis. Yair said this generated confusion and resulted in aborted operations.

Commentary;

For context on this Middle East Newsline brief, consider this article by Anshel Pfeffer of the Jerusalem Post nearly a month ago quoted here;

During the war, Hirsh was already described by officers at different levels as being disconnected both from the general staff and from the forces in the field. He was seen as the embodiment of the charge being made that the new generation of IDF generals have become addicted to plasma screens instead of going out and seeing the situation on the ground for themselves.

The complete Pfeffer article would seem indicative of what the outside committee cited by Middle East Newsline is trying to convey, that the “Follow me General” which was exemplified in Israel’s previous wars was absent in the Lebanon conflict, replaced by computer screens and thus, commanders relayed unclear orders and failed to fulfill even tactical missions. The lesson here would seem to be that there is no substitute for the field general. MB